1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to refrigeration apparatus, and more specifically, to an improved wiring construction for the electrical components of such apparatus that assures the proper wiring of the components and reduces assembly time.
2. Background Art
Prior art of possible relevance includes the following U.S. Pat. No. 3,405,986 issued Oct. 15, 1968 to Cannon; U.S. Pat. No. 3,460,352 issued Aug. 12, 1969 to Lorenz; U.S. Pat. No. 3,736,765 issued June 5, 1973 to O'Dell; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,771,321 issued Nov. 13, 1973 to Maksy.
As is well known, electrical refrigeration apparatus, such as refrigerators, freezers, or combination refrigerator-freezers, have become increasingly more complicated in the electrical sense over the years. To the basic minimum of a compressor, a cabinet light, and a thermostat, modern refrigeration apparatus now frequently includes a heater for defrosting, a timer for controlling the defrosting heater, a safety device to prevent overheating of the defrost heater, an evaporator fan, a mullion heater, and possibly other electrical components as, for example, an ice maker. As a consequence, the electrical wiring of a refrigeration apparatus has become more complicated. This, in turn, presents two major difficulties. One is the added expense involved in wiring the additional components. The other is that the greater number of components increases the possibility of wiring errors.
Heretofore, refrigeration apparatus manufactured by the assignee of the present application has attempted to minimize the foregoing problems through the use of a terminal board contained within the cabinet or housing for the refrigerating apparatus. The individual leads for each of the electrical components are provided with a spade terminal of conventional construction and each then individually fitted to an appropriate one of several terminal strips forming part of the terminal block. As can be readily appreciated, the individual fitting of each lead to a terminal strip is time consuming. Moreover, the nature of the process is such that the spade terminal on a given lead may be improperly applied to the wrong terminal strip producing a wiring error.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the above problems.